


Before the Thunder

by Dash9er



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Digital Art, Gen, Hostage Situations, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith Mini-Bang 2018, Mentor/Protégé, Orphan Keith (Voltron), Past Sexual Assault, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Protective Keith (Voltron), Protective Shiro (Voltron), Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-05 10:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dash9er/pseuds/Dash9er
Summary: First-year Garrison cadet Keith Kogane stands out like a shark in a tidal pool. Ruthless. Explosive. Focused. Rude. The other cadets can’t beat him, so they try to take him down any way they can.Despite the constant churning of rumors and accusations surrounding Keith, Senior Officer Takashi Shirogane offers to mentor him, showing the boy kindness and patience. Slowly, Keith is drawn out of his defensive shell. Slowly, he learns to trust Shiro.But time is running out.Tonight, the Garrison will be infiltrated by a group of anti-space militants and Shiro is at the top of their hit list. Unfortunately for them, Keith isn’t even on their radar. And there is no way in hell he is letting his friend die tonight.Or: my take on how Shiro first finds out what Keith is capable of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Imagine Dragon's song _Thunder._  
>  "I was lightning before the thunder..." 
> 
> This fic was written for the Keith Mini-Bang[click here!](http://keithminibang.tumblr.com)and all of this amazing art was done by the lovely Ana! i mean, really, people, she is so unbelievably talented. Come for the story, but hang around for the art. You do *not* want to miss those last three gorgeous pieces, Shiro fans!!!! Here's her art blog: [ringlov draws!](https://ringlovdraws.tumblr.com)  
> Ana also helped me ferret out a few mistakes, because she's just that sweet and helpful. Thanks, Ana!

Keith woke with a jerk, adrenaline flooding his system. He held himself still and lay quietly, trying to focus, to hear above the pounding of his heart.  _What woke me up?_

There were distant voices in the hallway, a casual conversation coming from the security checkpoint at the front entrance. Keith’s room was on the bottom floor of the cadet dormitory, one of two floors designated for the four hundred freshman. Each floor had a security checkpoint with a guard. It was 1:47 a.m., close to a shift change.

Keith slid off his upper bunk bonelessly and fumbled his way into the bathroom. After washing his hands, he padded back out and grabbed his water bottle. The drinking fountain had cold, clean water. Keith opened the door as quietly as possible and cringed at the glaring light overhead. If he wasn’t dying of thirst...

At the fountain, he heard his name being called. The guard was smiling at him.

“Can’t sleep again, little dude?”

Keith didn’t bother trying to answer. He nodded and surrendered to a huge yawn while his bottle filled up.

He heard the guard chuckling, but Keith scowled as he attempted to screw the top of his bottle on with sleep-clumsy fingers.

“Get some sleep, cadet.”

The man’s cheerful words followed Keith as he returned to his room and drank half the bottle of water right away.  _Much better._ Then he climbed back into bed and went limp with relief.

Information about Spatial Geometry danced through his mind entrancingly. Annoyed, Keith forced it away. Yes, there was a test tomorrow, but he’d already studied; he was ready for it.  _Go back to sleep,_ he told himself, aware that this often did not work. But eventually, the world around him dimmed and his eyes began to...drift...shut...

Suddenly, a loud noise jerked him back to wakefulness. His heart was thudding. He sat up slowly, straining to hear. There was a soft sound from down the hallway, like fabric being dragged against the floor....not a normal sound.

Instantly, Keith was out of his bunk, jerking his makeshift cudgel from its hiding place. Sure, they’d tried to make him get rid of it after he’d put two boys in the hospital. But he’d found where they dumped it and had stolen it right back again.

He  _had_ to be able to defend himself. Why in the hell didn’t they understand that?

Keith held his breath, listening for noises like that one night a few months ago, when there’d been hushed voices and snickers before five cadets had broken into his room and pulled him from his bed.

No...whatever was happening out there now was different. There were no scuffling sounds, no voices. Keith put the cudgel down and slipped on his shoes, silent.

A slight sound came from outside his window. He stepped up on the low window frame and looked out the top of the window, where the frosted glass gave way to regular glass. Some of the lights in the quad seemed to be out; there were quite a lot more shadows than usual.

Were some of those shadows moving?  Every instinct was screaming at Keith that something was wrong. Was he being paranoid?  _Shit._

Keith stepped down and shot across the room to the phone. There was no dial tone and no answer when he pressed the button for the operator. His Garrison-issued tablet had no signal, which was...impossible. Somehow, the Garrison had gone completely offline.

Keith gritted his teeth, feeling helpless.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and moved back over to the door. He needed more information. Slowly, he eased the door open a crack, letting the light flood in once again. Peeking around the doorframe told him all he needed to know. Things had changed. At the checkpoint were two men in blank, black tactical gear, both holding M-16s, both with their faces blacked out and...both looking directly back at him.

 _Shit. Shit. Shit._  Keith froze for a long second, options spinning through his mind.

Then he was darting down the hallway away from the men. A panic button was situated on each floor of the dorm with an alarm that went straight to Headquarters; he had to reach it!

“Hey!” he heard and boots pounded the floor behind him.

 _Don’t shoot me,_  he thought frantically as he slid to a stop, punched the glass out and reached for the panic button.

He never pushed it.

A bright flash of pain jerked him to a halt, wrenching a shocked cry from him.

Keith stared, open-mouthed, at his hand. A black-bladed knife was sunk  between his ring and pinkie finger, pinning it to the wall. Shock kept him frozen as one of the men came up behind, whistling low at Keith’s predicament.

“Damn, that looks painful,” he said and then yanked the knife out of the wall, sending a bolt of searing pain through Keith’s entire arm. Blood dripped from between his fingers as he curled over his throbbing hand.

Instinct had him dodging to the side but the man still managed to hook his arm and spin him around, just so he could lay him out with a fist to the face. Keith hit the tile floor with a bounce, seeing nothing but stars behind his eyelids.

Somewhere above him, he heard the man ask, “Are you brave or just stupid?”

“Stupid,” the other guy called back with a cackle.

“Whatever,” the man said in a voice that echoed strangely in Keith’s mind. “Don’t matter. Saaaaame result...either waaay.”

As the stars faded to blurry lights, Keith had to agree. He felt very, very stupid. He hated that; hated knowing how helpless he was and there was no way he could stop whatever came next.

“Dammit. Kid’s got a hard head...”

 

 

The next time Keith opened his eyes, he was being dragged limply down the hallway. Something was wrong. No matter what he tried, his body would not respond beyond a twitch of his fingers.

The man dragging him opened a door and pulled him into the dark. The room swirled around him as he was lifted up and dropped onto a bed. _No!_

Hysteria bubbled under his chest and there was not enough air. His fists shot out but large, heavy hands held him down--so, so easily.  _Why am I so weak?_

Someone leaned into his face and Keith smelled shoe polish and spearmint gum. One huge hand ground his wrists together; the other hand smashed over his mouth, stopping the incoherent noises spilling out.

“Stay down and nothing will happen to you,” the man growled from inches away. “If I see you again, that knife’s going through a vital organ this time.” He released Keith and turned away, leaving the boy to suck in desperate breaths, eyes leaking tears that wouldn’t stop. His trembling shook the bed frame.

The door closed after the man’s stifling presence left the room, sealing in the darkness. And slowly Keith began to realize what he hadn’t taken in because of his panic: this was his own bed and he was being left alone. After a few breaths, he calmed enough to take stock of his situation.

There was enough pain to set his teeth on edge, from the bone-deep ache in his hand and from two spots on his head that throbbed in time with his heartbeat. One had come from the man’s fist, the other had come from his head hitting the floor. That was definitely blood in his mouth. But it could have been worse; he could be dead right now, so he’d take the pain willingly.  

What were those men doing here? What could they possibly want at the Garrison?

Keith remembered hearing at some point about radical anti-space protestors. One of his professors had talked at length about the fact that the Space program spent a lot of tax dollars and some people didn’t like that. But surely this wasn’t their answer, to send in an invasion squad and terrorize the cadets? It was hard to think right now, but it made no sense. There had to be something else going on.

Overhead, the ceiling was webbed in darkness. Everything was still. Keith felt gingerly at his right cheek, which was swelling nicely. Did he have a concussion? He held up his hand and tried to see how many fingers he was holding up.

It took a lot to give Keith a concussion, but he’d had one before. Once, a bigger kid had shoved him out a second-floor window and he’d landed on a concrete block. He’d lost consciousness and had woken to a blurry world that was far too bright. It had taken several days in the hospital for Keith heal and his social worker had nearly had a stroke yelling at his foster parents. But they weren’t bad people, his social worker had explained afterward. They had the misfortune to have a group of boys that included both the biggest bully in the system and a small, silent misfit with a hard head.

 _Okay, enough._ Keith wrenched his mind back to here and now. He had to think this through. These men had taken down the phone lines and the internet; they had planned ahead. They hadn’t killed him when they easily could have. So they were here to control the cadets, right?

_Shhhh-chuunk!_

Keith jumped as the sound of hundreds of door locks shooting home filled the air. From across the room came the unwelcome sounds of his new-ish roommate finally waking up.

“Wha...was that?” Conner mumbled.”Keith?”

“Lockdown,” Keith answered in a low voice.

Conner sat up. “Is it a drill?”

“...no.”

“What?”

“Guys with M-16s are in the hallway. Don’t know what they want.”

“You’re lying. Is that a joke?”Conner jumped out of the bottom bunk and went straight to turn on the light.

“Turn it off!” Keith hissed, sitting up and regretting it instantly.

“You...where did all that blood came from?”

_“Turn it off!”_

He obeyed, but Conner was beginning to panic. “Why are you bleeding?”

“Shut up and listen!” Keith hissed, holding his breath. Had the men noticed their light flicking on and off? There were distant voices...coming from a few rooms down maybe. But no response from the men. Keith found could breathe again. “The blood is from from my hand...mostly. I tried to get to the panic button.”

“Tried?”

“They stopped me.”

“Oh my god. What is it with you getting beat up? Are you alright?” It sounded like Conner had moved closer.

“I’m fine. I just wanted to let Command know that something was wrong. But it’s alright. They must know now.”

“How?”

“Those idiots put the whole building on lockdown. That’s what woke you up. It will automatically alert Command and the Police.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing. Guy said he’d stab me somewhere vital if I showed my face out there again.”

“Oh my god.” Conner moved even closer. “But the locks will keep them out, right?”

“Yeah. We can open them from inside; they can’t open them from outside.” Keith made a tentative fist with his right hand and felt more blood trickle down his wrist. “Do you have any more band-aids in that kit?”

“Oh. Yeah. I do.” The moonlight through the blinds caught Conner’s movements as he moved to dig through his top drawer. “Here it is. Is it just your hand?”

“Yeah,” Keith said as he slid down from the top bunk. “It’s bleeding everywhere.”

“I noticed. Let me see.”

Keith weaved a bit as he walked, wincing at the ache in his head. “I can do it myself.”

“Yeah, I know, but why would you want to? I’m really good at it. My younger brother was always hurting himself and I’d help him get cleaned up before Mom got home and freaked out. She’s horrible with blood. Anyways...give me your hand.”  

Conner shined a small flashlight on Keith’s hand and they both stared at the inch-long incision that gaped from the upper edge of his right hand.

“That is so cool. I mean, it looks like it hurts, though--sorry.” Keith bit his bottom lip. The pain seemed to be growing by the second. “It’s going to need stitches. I can’t do that here.”

“Just put some gauze and tape on it.” Keith gritted out, realizing he was letting Conner do this even though it made him uncomfortable, just in case something worse happened and he needed to be able to fight.

“I can do that,” Conner said, sounding pleased. “This is a knife wound?”

“Yeah.”

His roommate explained that knife wounds were dangerous because of the way they introduced bacteria directly into the bloodstream. While Conner was cleaning and wrapping the injury, a sudden upsurge in the volume of voices in the hallway caught Keith’s attention. Something was happening.

He hushed Conner, but still couldn’t understand what the men were saying.

“Sounds like they’re going outside,” Conner whispered as he packed away his gear. “I think that’s good for now. That blue stuff I put on kinda numbs it. Do you need anything else looked at?” He was staring at Keith. “You’ve got blood on your face, too.”

Keith shook his head. “No. Uh...thanks.” He tentatively clenched his injured hand, glad to feel the pain had eased a bit. As often as he got hurt, could it be a coincidence that his roommate was good at first aid?

A noise outside the window drew their attention.

“I wonder what they’re doing now?” Conner said, peering through the frosted glass.  “Wait--are they going into the Officer’s Lodge?”

Keith lurched forward, an icy feeling in the pit of his stomach. _Shiro_... He stepped up on the low ledge to see through the top pane that gave a clear view. Yes, that was the Officer’s Lodge. That was where Shiro lived...or as most people knew him: Senior Officer Takashi Shirogane.

 

_“Call me Shiro. You’re making me feel old.”_

 

* * *

 

 

 

Keith knew for certain that without Shiro’s help, he would never have gotten into the Garrison. It honestly seemed like a dream sometimes, especially since Shiro didn’t just leave him to fend for himself once he was here. The man seemed determined to help him, no matter what everyone else said or how much Keith screwed up. 

But there was a down side to attention from Shiro: somehow, it turned Keith into even more of a target. The Garrison’s golden hero reaching out to a local, orphaned misfit? Keith had great instincts; he knew it was only a matter of time before the hate-filled glares and nasty whispers gave way to something more visceral.

Sure enough, it had only taken three weeks. Then came the night five cadets broke into his room and dragged him from his bed. But Keith was far from the disoriented, helpless victim they expected and he knew from experience to do anything rather than let them get him on his knees.

Sure, they’d wrestled him down off the bed, slamming his face into the handrail on the way down. But they made two mistakes: they wasted time trying to gag Keith when he had no intention of calling for help and they didn’t notice him going for his cudgel. It was only a broken desk leg he’d found in a trash can and hid inside his bed frame, but it was hard and heavy.

He worked his arm free and bashed the leader in the face. Two more cadets had gone down with a swing to his left and his right, which left one more to receive a kick to the groin and one final wimp to run like a coward.

Keith had stood there, breathing heavily, feeling vindicated for his constant paranoia.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” one of them had said as he got to his feet, brushing a hand under his nose to smear the blood there. “It’s a tradition, you retard!”

“I think he broke something,” the other one wheezed, his hand crossed over his abdomen. Keith didn’t even remember hitting him there. Had he?

“He’s crazy,” the bloodied one said as he helped the broken one up. “I’m going to Iverson.”

“What? You attacked me,” Keith finally spat.

But they didn’t hesitate to go straight to Commander Iverson, spinning their story as an innocent prank gone wrong. Keith had tried to explain but the officers who questioned him were all obsessed about his cudgel, where did he get it and why did he have it in the first place? He grew sullen and uncommunicative, knowing where this was headed. There were documented anger issues in his past, plenty of altercations as well as delinquent behavior in his file. Why would they listen to him?

After the investigation, Keith was supposed to believe that, like the cadets said, they were only there to drag him into the shower and put him under the cold water--a typical “Garrison welcome.”  _Yeah, right._

“While it is true that they were the instigators, you have injured four cadets, two of them seriously enough to warrant trips to the hospital. That cannot go unpunished. Even Senior Officer  Shirogane agrees with that.”

Even Shiro? Keith’s stomach had curdled at the familiar feeling of betrayal. Fight back and get punished for it.They would all rather him sit back and take it like he did when he was a kid. His temper flared.  _Not gonna happen._

“That means twenty-five demerits,” the man continued, “two months of kitchen duty. A mark on your permanent record. And mandatory weekly mentoring for six months.”

Keith barely managed to choke out his next words. “W-what happens to them? The ones who attacked  _me?”_

“Attacked is a strong word, but yes, they will be receiving ten demerits…”

There had been more tacked on the end of that explanation, but Keith’s brain had fuzzed out. Ten demerits for whatever the hell it was they were going to do to him.  _Ten._

It wasn’t new, this feeling, but it still hurt to be reminded that no matter how much they valued what he could do in the flight simulator, the Garrison didn’t value him. And Shiro had agreed? Keith was livid enough to avoid Shiro for the next week.

It was a horrible seven days. His new nickname was Psycho. The other cadets his age seemed genuinely afraid of him. His roommate asked for a transfer. Keith had felt completely alone.

But then they set up his first enforced mentor visit with none other than Senior Officer Takashi Shirogane. They met in a nondescript small room in Command Central’s labyrinth of offices. Keith arrived early despite himself; Shiro was right on time.

The officer walked into the room with a few files and books in hand, humming a tune as he closed the door quietly behind him. Keith crossed his arms and sank into his seat, knowing what was about to come out of his mouth would only make things worse. It always did.  

But then Shiro smiled as he sat down, his gray eyes taking Keith in warmly. “Keith. How are you? I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Keith muttered to the floor. “Why don’t you ask the other guys how they’re doing?”

There was a heavy pause.

“I have asked them,” Shiro said soberly. “I’ve spoken with everyone about the incident in your room except for you. Do you know why?”

“No.”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me. Thank goodness you needed a mentor! I was able to formally schedule this meeting to get your side of the story.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” The quiet in the room stretched out, measured by the ticking of the clock on the wall. Keith blinked a few times, his brow furrowed. He’d been expecting a lecture, not silence. After a few more seconds, he risked peeking up from under his bangs.

The man was still smiling at him patiently. “I’d really like to understand what happened, Keith.”

“Why?”

“Because the truth is important.”

Keith glared at him. “Iverson said you agreed that I should get punished for what I did. Did you say that?”

Shiro’s eyes flashed with intensity. “Of course not. Commander Iverson likes to...bend facts a little to benefit himself. But don’t worry about him. Please, tell me what happened,” the man insisted, his eyes steady. Keith gave a heavy sigh and told his story in as few words as possible.

Shiro listened, his lips tightening. “That’s what I thought,” he said when Keith was done. “Their accounting of the night’s activities is quite different, of course.”

Keith snorted.

“And what about this mysterious cudgel?”

“Stole a broken desk leg from a trash can. Put it under my mattress, just in case.”

“In case of what?” Shiro had opened one of the folders and was looking over some papers, probably a history of Keith’s career here, possibly including his time as an orphan bouncing around from place to place. Keith gritted his teeth. He’d only been at the Garrison one month. If he washed up here, it was back to the group home, where they did their damnedest to make him feel like he was less than nothing.

“In case of what,” Shiro repeated in the same even tone.

Keith forced himself to speak. “In case of what happened last week. I’m not as stupid as I look.”

“Nobody here thinks you’re stupid, Keith, least of all me. What makes you say that?”

“Just because people are nice doesn’t mean anything. In the dark, you can only count on yourself.”

Shiro put the papers down. “That sounds very lonely.”

 _Lonely?_ The word triggered something in Keith and he was instantly on his feet, snagging his backpack. His heart was beating hard. “Can I go now?”

“Why? Keith, did I say something wrong? I’m only trying to understand.”

 _If you don’t understand already, there’s no way I can explain it to you._ Keith couldn’t look at Shiro again; he felt his own careful composure beginning to break. What was it about this guy and his stupid, earnest face? “Must be nice,” he finally mumbled.

“What must be nice?”

Keith panicked slightly. Sometimes he had no control over his stupid mouth. Everyone knew that. But Shiro was looking at him and waiting patiently and he wasn’t going to stop waiting because apparently he was the stubborn-bastard kind of patient.

Keith swallowed. What had he been trying to say? Adults were always trying to get in his head, to understand why he did the things he did. But sometimes he didn’t even understand himself.

_It must be nice..._

“To live in a world so... safe.” There was a long silence, and Keith found the courage to give the officer a short glance. Shiro looked shaken.

“I have a headache,” Keith mumbled, rubbing at the spot between his eyes. He didn’t even have to lie. “Can we...do this another day?”

“Of course. I’ll...text you later.”

Keith blinked, surprised the man had his number, but then it was a Garrison-issued phone and of course…Iverson. “Fine.” He bolted out the door, relieved to be free. Little did he know then that Officer Shirogane wasn’t going to give up that easily.

 

That had been almost five months ago, and since then, they had met nearly every week. Shiro had been nothing but kind and patient with him. Other cadets were jealous and accused him of getting special treatment, even going so far as to say that his mentoring was the reason Keith’s simulation scores were so far ahead of the curve.

 _Whatever._ Keith could deal with people talking; he’d always dealt with it in one form or another.

But they didn’t understand. Shiro had done so much more than teaching him how to fly. In many ways, the best ways, he’d saved his life.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And now Shiro could be in danger.

Keith’s frantic mind supplied him with a dozen quickfire examples of Garrison publicity centered on Shiro. He was their golden graduate and they were grooming him for future missions. The public was in love with him, as were half the Garrison cadets.

“Keith, what is it?”

If these were anti-Space militants, then why wouldn’t they try to take away the Garrison’s brightest hope?

“No,” Keith whispered, begging the universe to let him be wrong.

“Keith!” Conner hissed. “What are you looking at?” Conner joined him at the window, stepping up onto the low ledge. “Where’d they all go?”

Just then, the door of the Lodge burst open and men in all black dragged out a familiar figure. Several other men held guns on him, though he wasn’t fighting back at all.

Keith slammed his hands against the window.

“Oh my god,” Conner said in a horrified voice. “Is that Takashi Shirogane?”

Shiro was listing to the side heavily, gagged, tied and half-carried by the men on either side of him. They were headed for the Atwood Building, which housed the simulation rigs... 

 _Of course!_  Millions of dollars were spent on maintaining those rigs every year to keep them  functioning at the highest level and with the newest upgrades. Taking them out would be a great blow to the program. Taking them out with Shiro as a bonus would be...devastating in every way possible.

Keith felt sick and his breath stuttered in his chest.

All at once, a clear memory filled his mind: of Shiro laughing and smiling the way that he only smiled when he was away from the Garrison. Where had they been that day?

_Oh...right._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

“I’m too old to go to the zoo,” Keith complained.

“I know that,” Shiro said in a serious, considerate tone. “I’m just glad you don’t mind tagging along with me as I run this important errand.”

“Whatever,” Keith said, still trying to figure out if he should be insulted or not. Shiro hadn’t told him this trip was to make up for his shitty childhood, but there had been a conversation where the exact words “you’ve never been to the zoo?” were spoken. Shiro had been obviously horrified though he’d tried to play it off.

A month later, Shiro had requested to take his mentee on a field trip into town while he ran some necessary errands. The zoo was apparently part of this. It was crazy; Keith couldn’t figure this guy out, which made him suspicious. Being suspicious made him angry. Sure, Shiro had yet to betray Keith’s trust, but it was coming; it had to be. And the longer it got put off, the worse it was going to feel.  _Dammit._

“I have to give this package to the medical zoologist in the penguin habitat. It got mislabeled and ended up at the Garrison.”

“Really?” Keith said intently, watching Shiro for any sign of a lie, but there was none. At least that part of the story read true.

“Here we are!”

It was just a parking lot, but the rows had been labeled with animal art and numbers to help visitors locate their car on the way back. And youwould need a number, because...this was the biggest parking lot Keith had ever seen.

“How many people come here?” Keith asked, a bit awed.

Shiro was watching him, his face lit with a smile. “About ten thousand a day. Pretty amazing, right? Come on, let’s get in there.” He patted Keith’s shoulder, which was a normal sensation now and didn’t make Keith flinch the way he had at first.

They joined the packs of people lining up to get tickets. There was so much to see and so many different kinds of people that Keith had felt overloaded almost instantly. He’d crossed his arms and nudged himself closer to Shiro. The man was always warm.

“Are you okay?” Shiro asked, looking down at him.

Keith nodded and eased a few inches away. He wanted to be near Shiro, but didn’t like that he wanted to be near Shiro. It was just asking for trouble.  

The ten long minutes that it took to get through the line were enough for Keith to focus more on where they were headed than the cacophony of sights and sounds around him. He felt more acclimated as they walked through the turnstile and into another world.

Inside, the grounds were immaculate and trimmed and beautiful in a way he’d never seen before. Music was coming from the trees somehow and there were so many smells, by turns foul and interesting and amazing. Keith kept moving his head to chase them. He couldn’t see any animals yet, but his heart was pumping in anticipation. People did this all the time? Came here?

“Let’s _go!”_  Keith said, wishing he felt comfortable enough to pull Shiro toward that sidewalk on the right where everyone was headed. Was that a lion on the sign up ahead?

“Hold your jets, Keith,” Shiro said, leading him over to a large map. “Let’s figure out where we need to go first. Here’s the penguin habitat all the way in the back. We’ll have to tour our way through most of it to get there. That won’t be too bad, right?”

But Keith’s eyes had stuck on one area on the map and his jaw hung open. “They. Have. Hippopotamuses.”

Shiro laughed and when Keith looked up, the sun and Shiro’s grin both nearly blinded him. At that moment, he forgot everything else but how it felt to have someone actually enjoying being with him. That day was one of his favorite memories, all because of Shiro.


	2. Chapter 2

“Keith? Keith! What are you doing?” Conner sounded like he’d been trying to talk to him for a while. _“Is that a knife?”_

Keith stared at Conner, caught out as he clipped his knife sheath to the right side of his belt. “N-no,” he stammered, wanting to explain it away, but failing miserably.

“Yes it is! What are you doing? Are you _crazy?”_

Keith stared at Conner, taken aback by the panic in his voice. “I have to help Shiro.”

Conner stared back, hissing, “They’ve got guns! They’ll shoot you if they see you!”

“So I won’t let them see me.”

“Shouldn’t we let the adults handle this? You said Command would have been notified by the lockdown. Why can’t we let them handle this?”

Keith didn’t mean to ignore him, but Conner’s panic was making it hard to think. Instead of answering, he drank some water while he considered what to do next. The hallway was not an option. But in the other direction...well, since the bars on his window were only there for show...

“Keith... _why_  can’t you let Command handle this?” Conner’s tense voice broke back into Keith’s thoughts.

“Do you see anyone from Command out there fighting back? They must have been neutralized. That’s the first thing I’d do.” He reached up and flipped his pillow over, slipping out the all-access security pass he’d swiped a few weeks ago from that idiot Lieutenant Commander Weeks.

Three months ago, Keith had overheard the Lieutenant talking about losing his pass and having to get it replaced, which was a mark on his spotless record,  _blah blah blah._ It had occured instantly to Keith that he could take advantage of that loss. Weeks had a bad habit of leaving his pass on top of the filing cabinet in the corner of his classroom. It had been a simple task to lift the new pass out of sight of the security cameras. Keith knew that when it was found missing, they’d chalk up the loss of Weeks’ new pass to the same absent-mindedness that lost him his first pass this year.

Yeah, okay, Keith didn’t like to steal, but in some of the places he’d been, it made the difference between starving or having enough to make it another day. Survival had made him somewhat pragmatic.

“N-n-neutralized?” Conner said weakly.

The pass had been put in a lanyard and Keith slung it over his neck before tucking in his shirt. “Conner, go back to bed.”

“But shouldn’t...shouldn’t I help you?”

“You already did,” Keith said, holding up his bandaged hand as he climbed up on the window ledge. “You could also hand me my cudgel.”

Conner looked around and went to grab the cudgel off of Keith’s desk. “You still have this thing? But...look. If you’re going to do this...maybe you should rescue the adults first? Then they could help you.”

Keith nodded vaguely, trying to make himself consider the idea. Then he took hold of the inset window bars.

“What are you doing?” Conner asked, but trailed off as it became obvious, “...oh.”

The thin bars over the glass were far from new and Keith had managed to break them over time by pulling on them with all of his weight for whatever amount of time he could every day. That meant, basically, whenever his first roommate had been out of the room.It had taken two months, but they had cracked and given way right above the screws on the bottom of the window. Now the lower bars pulled out and Keith was slim enough to fit under them. The top was still attached, so the bars went back in place easily, and the damage had been hidden by black electrical tape. Keith had been using it as an emergency exit since then, whenever he couldn’t take it anymore. He’d always slept better in a room with more than one exit.

For a moment, he peered out across the grounds of the Garrison. The lights pooled around the buildings even though few of the safety lights had been darkened. Not a single person was in sight.  _Good_. Keith slipped between the bars and the window. The latch slid Keasily and he pulled the window up.

Conner handed him the cudgel. Keith tossed it over the ledge to the ground four feet below in the hedges. This would be an easy jump for him.

“Hey,” he whispered to Conner, “leave the window unlocked, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Then Keith jumped through, landing beyond the hedges and rolling back to get under cover.  Up above there was nothing to see in the window of his room. Conner had already closed the window. The panes were dark and everything looked normal.

Then a shot rang out and Keith flattened under the hedges, instantly panicked.

 They wouldn’t have shot Shiro that quickly--they couldn’t! Keith grabbed at his head with both hands.  _Shiro is fine. He’s not dead!_

But he couldn’t calm down. That gunshot had registered on a deep, primal level, electrifying his senses, awakening the rage that laid dormant in him as long as he could remember. It hadn’t taken over, not completely since that time in Shiro’s office...

 

_They want me to ask you something, Keith..._

 

Keith rocked back and forth, willing the tears back.

But if they hurt Shiro...if he was gone, what would Keith have left?

_Nothing_.

Keith slammed his hands down into the dirt.  ** _No!_**

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Keith, they want me to ask you something in our session today.” Shiro was shifting in his chair, smiling to reassure Keith, but it wasn’t working. After five years in the foster system, Keith was an expert in fake smiles and the kind of people who gave them and his hackles were rising.

“Ask me about what?” Keith finally asked when Shiro hadn’t elaborated.

“About something noted in your file.” Shiro cleared his throat nervously. A faint buzzing started in Keith’s ears. He felt hot. “An incident from five years ago labelled ‘accidental arson.’ Those two words aren’t usually found together.”

Daylight filtered in the window through the half-open blinds and spilled across the clay tile floor. Keith tried to focus on it instead of the sudden burning in his stomach and the buzz growing in his ears.  _Don’t ask,_  he tried to project with his whole being, but Shiro plunged ahead anyway.

“I would tell them to go to hell, but I know you, Keith. I know you to be a kind person and a brave person with high moral standards. This must be a mistake. Why would you set fire to someone’s house? Especially someone who...”

Keith didn’t hear the other words...just why.

_Why? **Why?**_  

They always asked that because they didn’t  _understand_. Even if he wanted to say it, the words clogged impossibly in Keith’s throat. Fingers clenched into the arms of the chair, teeth digging into his bottom lip, he trembled and fought his own instincts.

Because he had come to know Shiro, to respect him. And over and over again, the senior officer had defended Keith, because Iverson was a dick and the other cadets were always running Keith down. Besides that, Shiro  _listened_  to Keith; he was the first person who really had.

So, after a long silence that surely must have tested even Shiro’s patience, when the words finally unravelled in Keith’s mouth, he spoke them haltingly. “I--what’s it... called....when you fight...because they...attack you first?”

“You mean self-defense? Are you saying that you set a house on fire...in self-defense?”

“A bed,” Keith bit out, “not a house. I set...my bed on fire so it...couldn’t happen again.”

Shiro flinched. “Wait--are you saying someone there abused you?”

“No...it...I....” Keith hunched over farther, shaking, digging his fingers into his thighs, listening to the buzzing reach a fever pitch. He felt searing heat sweep through him and then...rage.

It was something like a silent explosion in his head, and he didn’t know who he was or where he was, just that he  _burned_  and the only thing that could make it stop was lashing out. The chair was in his hands and then smashing into the window. Shards of glass flew and shattered and splintered as he hit it again and again and again and the chair came apart and it ripped down the blinds and sunlight was spilling in.

And he was talking, choking on all the words that wouldn’t come before: about a kind man who was a monster and muffled his screams and held him down and about the pain, pain,  _pain_  that everyone in the house heard and no one stopped and about a dawn of trembling and blood and vomiting and bruises and a family who just...left him... _alone_.

Vaguely, Keith knew he was standing at the window now, gripping the sill but words were still coming, spilling out of him quietly and desperately. He had to tell about how he had known, in the way he had always  _known_  things, that it was going to happen again because there was no one to make it stop. There was no one because his real Dad had died and his real Mom had left and he was going to have to do it himself, and he knew exactly how...as if he’d been planning it for a long time somewhere deep inside.

He whispered now, about the flammable logs by the fireplace downstairs, matches not far away. How he stole a log and placed it on his bed. Struck a match while She finished up his breakfast downstairs, still pretending nothing had happened--and then, so quick...the bed was burning brightly. Smoke drifted up and flames crackled. And then the floor caught fire, and the curtains and he was running and She was standing aghast at the door.

She screamed at him but he made it out into the yard, running, limping, until he found a tall tree to climb and he was alone and finally felt safe and could breathe again. Keith stayed there until the firemen came, and his social worker, and they helped to get him down. But the house burned and they lost it all and could never keep kids again because his body was the proof and he’d let...the doctor see it.

After that, Keith hadn’t talked for a long time. He remembered that distinctly. They said they wanted to know why he’d done it, but he could tell they knew. And he  _couldn’t_  speak. Words just...failed him.

_“...you hear me?”_

Keith blinked, suddenly becoming aware. Someone was talking to him. His face was wet. His hands hurt where they clenched around the broken glass in the window sill.

“Keith, buddy, I’m here.” Shiro...it was Shiro crouched beside him, close, but not touching, talking in that quiet voice he reserved for Keith.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” Keith jumped at the jarring voice coming through the intercom system.

“No, sir. I have everything under control,” Shiro said in a louder voice. “Keith and I need a few more minutes.”

Keith’s stomach cramped.  _What_ _did I do?_ He backed away, stepping on shattered glass and wood splinters, his chest so tight that he could hardly breathe. “Sorry,” he choked out.

“Keith, it’s okay,” Shiro said calmly, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Turn around, buddy. Everything’s fine.”

Keith shook his head. There was blood gathering in his palms and running down his wrists. “I’m sorry. I didn’t--I...”

Shiro was closer now, his gray eyes kind and reassuring. “I know. That was a bad memory you just re-lived. You handled it fine.”

“Fine?” Keith choked out. “Your w-window...and the chair...”

“Easily replaceable, Keith. But you hurt your hands. Can you let me see them?”

Keith’s wide eyes were glued to Shiro’s face as the man took his injured hands gently. He dabbed at the blood with some gauze and pulled out a few slivers of glass. Everything in the office was quiet while the ticking of the clock seemed loud.

Shiro began talking, saying something soothing about getting the lacerations cleaned up at the infirmary and maybe stitched. Keith was barely able to listen as his gaze jumped around the room.

He’d done it; he had finally lost his temper in a spectacular manner, destroying half of Shiro’s office in one go. They were going to kick him out as soon as they saw this. Where was he going to go? His breath hitched in his chest.

“Keith, you okay?”

Keith searched Shiro’s face and found the tension he expected, the thunderclouds in his brow.  _No_. They were going to kick him out and Shiro knew it. As soon as the thought hit him, Keith’s knees gave way. Shiro made an awkward grab to keep him up.

“Whoa! Hey, you okay? Here, sit here,” Shiro helped him get into the other chair. “I guess the blood loss is getting to you.”

Keith nodded dizzily. “Please don’t let them kick me out.” That wasn’t what he meant to say, and judging by the surprise on Shiro’s face, it wasn’t something that the man expected to hear. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m _sorry,”_ he said, putting a hand to his mouth when he didn’t think he could stop apologizing and it was annoying to people.

“Keith,” Shiro said in an agonized voice, “it’s  _okay_  that you were upset. And it’s okay that you’re angry. I’m pissed off just hearing what happened to you. To be honest, it makes me want to destroy something, too.” Shiro stood and grabbed the chair behind his desk. “It makes me so _angry!”_

Keith gaped in astonishment as Shiro grunted and heaved his chair through the window, too. The already battered frame gave way and the chair-made-missile collapsed half-in, half-out of the destroyed office.

Keith pulled both hands up to cover his mouth, scared of every thought in his head right now. But Shiro was incandescent, face lit by the unfiltered light through the window, almost unrecognizable in his intensity. “That’s how angry I am, too! If it takes burning down a building to get someone to listen to you, then that’s what you do. If it takes throwing a chair through a window, then you do that, too.  _They_  were wrong, not you.”

Keith nodded, wide-eyed, tears slipping down his cheeks, defenseless in the face of so much...caring.

“And don’t worry about this mess. If they try to throw you out, then they’ll have to throw me out, too, because obviously, we’re both incorrigible.” Shiro stood there, sighing heavily before managing a smile. “Now. Let’s get you to the infirmary and get those hands fixed.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Keith felt his throat tighten at the memory. There were still scars on his hands from that day. No one ever saw them because Shiro had gotten permission for him to wear fingerless gloves as part of his uniform. It hid the scars and kept the uneven skin from catching on things painfully while they continued to heal.

No one knew all that Shiro had done for him. Even though he’d seen the worst of Keith, seen how broken and pathetic he was, despite that, Shiro still stayed and cared and wanted to help. Keith rubbed his thumb against the top of his fist, concentrating on that feeling, letting it ground and calm him.

Overhead, rain began to fall. It pattered gently on the hard-packed earth of the Garrison grounds, painting the dirt in darker shades until it churned up mud. By then, Keith’s breathing had slowed. But he still felt the conviction at the center of his body; that if Shiro was gone....he would have nothing left.

_Nothing_.

Shiro  _had_  to be okay and Keith was going to do whatever it took to make sure that happened. He breathed deeply and focused his mind.

On this side of the dormitory, there were no doors and therefore no guards who might be watching. Keith took up his cudgel, took a deep breath and sprinted for the commissary, located two hundred feet or so away. The rain didn’t slow him down, but it did make his slide under the hedges there a bit more messy. He laid there, listening for signs that he’d been seen.

“Does your pass work for this one?” a voice said from the front side of the building.

Keith flinched, then eased back against the wall. Two men came around the corner, splashing through the ankle-deep water. They had missed seeing Keith by mere seconds.

They were both wearing black tactical gear, with blacked-out faces, closely resembling the men Keith had seen in his dormitory. Keith tried to calm his breathing. Sure, they were only two feet away, but they had no reason to know he was there. The water was deep enough to cover footprints and there had been a building between him and them.

“You were supposed to eat  _before_  the job, idiot,” one griped at the other.

“I did. I’m thirsty,” whined the other. “Just let me get a Coke.”

“And where are you going to hide it? It’s kinda’ hard to camouflage a drink can.”

“So? Who’s looking? Dumb cadets are locked away. Command’s down and about to blow sky high. Who else is gonna’ care if I get something to drink?”

Keith’s jaw dropped. They were going to blow up Central Command?

“God, you are such a baby. I’m not letting you jeopardize this whole operation for pop!”

“It’s not called pop, ya’ damn Yankee!”

Keith breathed easier when they moved farther away, their argument fading to silence. Central Command was on the other side of the Commissary, farther away from the Atwood Building where Shiro had been taken. But if the CC was rigged to blow, then Keith needed to stop that bomb.Or find someone who knew how to do it, as defusing a bomb hadn’t been anywhere in the curriculum so far.

_But Shiro..._

Keith cursed and forced himself to head toward Central Command once the two men had gone inside the Commissary to get the bitterly contested drink. Overhead, the rain had stilled to a misty shower permeating the air.

His scalp prickled with unease and Keith sped up, legs churning as he reached the long, low wall on the Southside and threw himself over. His instincts were right; a gunshot rang out a second later and a slug hit the wall on the opposite side. He’d been seen.

Keith ran, crouched low behind the wall all the way to the door. He wrapped the pass around the top of his cudgel and reached it up to the security monitor. No gunshot. A green light glowed above the door and Keith dove inside. As the door slid safely closed behind him, he took a few seconds to scan the unfamiliar hallway.

This was the utility access door to Command Central. On either side of Keith were doors marked  _Food Services, Utility, Security_ and _Maintenance._ Ahead was another security-access door leading to the other wing which held offices for the Garrison’s officers. Outside, there were armed men headed his way. If he tried to hide here, these rooms might as well be labeled  _Keith’s Tomb_.

He lurched forward and shoved his pass at the monitor.The door opened to an empty, fully-lit hallway. A quiet alarm was sounding from somewhere at the other end of the building.

There was a strange smell in the air, something like gunpowder but different.  _Something used to neutralize the officers._ He didn’t really want to walk into that, but if it was rigged to blow and there were people in there...

If there was a way to help them, he had to do it and quickly. Shiro needed him, too.

He stowed the cudgel up under his sleeve, leaving only the end in his hand. Looking defenseless was his only advantage here. The pungent smell led him past the darkened, empty offices. This late at night, there should have been a small crew of security plus the night patrol officers. So where were they?

The alarm grew louder and the smell hanging in the air stung his nasal passages, making his eyes water. He finally recognized it: tear gas.

“Aren’t you out a bit past your bedtime?”

Keith jerked to a halt and held up his hands slowly as another tall militant in black clothing swaggered out of a dark office on the right, holding an M-16. “What’s your name, kid?”

Words clogged in Keith’s throat. He tried to force them out, but far behind him, a door slammed open and there were two sets of running footsteps.

“Looks like you pissed off someone pretty good, no-name,” the tall man said, sounding pleased with the situation.

“There he is,” one of the soldiers growled as he rounded the corner. “Rafe. Get hold of him.”

“Why? What’s he gonna’ do? He’s already injured,” Rafe said, gesturing to Keith’s face, where he probably had quite a bruise blossoming. “And no names, dickhead.”

Dickhead sighed and gestured vaguely. “Sorry. He got out of the dorm somehow. I’m supposed to take him back.”

“He’s got a pass around his neck, obviously that’s how he got around. And what do you mean?” The other soldier, clearly female, gestured with her gun. “ _You’re_  supposed to take him back?”

“Yes. Me. My job. Got a problem with that?”

“Yeah. Do you even know which one is the cadets’ dorm?”

Keith watched them begin to debate who would return him. He couldn’t believe he’d been caught so easily. But they hadn’t taken his weapons yet. They obviously trusted in their superior weapons and size, which meant they were underestimating him.

“Shut up, you two,” Rafe stopped their arguing. “Take him out of here so I can get finished checking the charges. T minus 22.”

“Right. Come on, kid,” Dickhead said, grabbing Keith by his collar and pushing him back toward the utility entrance. As they walked, Keith silently fumed. It sounded as if Rafe was too busy to help these two. Shame, because they were going to need it.

They hadn’t even noticed that he was armed. His cudgel was still choked up, hidden mostly by his sleeve and hand. His knife was in its sheath, tucked into his belt.

Slowly, Keith moved his right hand back to grab the handle of his knife. He would make his move when one of them went forward to open the security door, leaving only one to guard him. Or...maybe he should wait until they were through the first door and Rafe couldn’t hear anything.

Dickhead stepped up to open the door, and the girl took Keith’s arm a little roughly. “Walk, or you’ll be short a leg, sweetie.”

“You’re turning me on with that hot talk, Sweetcheeks,” Dickhead said with a smarmy grin.

Judging by how fast Sweetcheeks threw her tactical knife at Dickhead’s face, she didn’t enjoy his comment. The jerk just managed to duck in time.

“What the hell?”

She got right in his face and they both started yelling.

Keith glowered at them. Had they completely forgotten about him? This was a badly trained unit, couldn’t be true military. Of course their distraction worked in his favor. Now if only they were facing the right direction. Keith shifted his weight from one side to the other and bit his lip. Time was passing too quickly for this crap.

Finally they settled something and the douchebag turned to the door, fumbling to get his pass in place. So he didn’t get to see what happened next. Instantly, Keith was in motion, jumping high, cudgel whipping forward right as Sweetcheeks was turning back to check on him.  _Forehead, meet desk leg._

 

As she collapsed like a house of cards, Keith threw himself into a crouch as Dickhead turned with his M-16 raised. Of course, Keith was low, poised with a perfect view of the man’s crotch.

Accordingly, he rammed his cudgel in the man’s groin, ripped the gun away and as the man bowed forward, smashed it into the back of his neck. The man collapsed on top of Sweetcheeks.

Then Keith paused, realizing that he had a problem. Should he waste time securing these two, or assume they were too out of it to reappear and cause problems later? If they were found, then the alert would go out to search for Keith and his freedom would be much more limited.

Cursing, Keith dug through the man’s pouch at his waist and found some black zip ties. It was the work of a few precious minutes to tie their feet together and their hands behind their back. Then he dragged them into the Utility room and took their passes and equipment away, dumping them in another room. Two dissidents down, but who knew how many to go?

 

 

Keith crept back down the hallway, fearing to hear Rafe’s voice at any moment. But when he reached the central room, it was empty and in complete disarray. The bank of computers was trashed--sliced by a sharp weapon that left them spitting sparks--and the monitors along the ceiling had been blacked out by what smelled like tar.

There were several large, suspicious black bags on the floor next to the secretary’s desk. Inside were explosives wired to a timer counting down from 16:45. Keith sat back on his heels and took a second to breathe, his mind flicking through crazy solutions that just wouldn’t work. Moving the bags? Could be booby-trapped.  _It’s what I would do._

From somewhere beyond the room came a sneeze and a groan. Someone was still here?

Keith sprinted past the secretary’s desk and down the aisle to the head of security’s office.

His pass unlocked the door, but it stuck, bumping against something soft. A low grunt sounded from inside. Wincing, Keith slid through the door without opening it farther. Then he flipped the light on to find six people zip-tied and dumped miserably on the floor.

“Sergeant Atkins?” The nearest person was one of Keith’s drill sergeants, who must have been on duty tonight. The man was moaning and his eyes were swollen shut. Definitely tear gas. “I’m going to untie you and then you’ve got to get everyone out.”

“Kogane? Is that you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never thought I’d be glad to see your face. How long before the bomb goes off?”

“Sixteen minutes.” Keith used his knife to cut everyone’s zip-ties while he summed up what he had seen during the night. He helped Sergeant Atkins to his feet. “Can you see well enough to get out?”

“No, son, I think I’d better stay put.”

“You can’t! The police aren’t coming, right? These bastards cut all communication lines first.”

“I’ve got an emergency line they won’t know about and there’s a bomb shelter in the back. Corporal Stanley can help me find it,” he gestured to the young officer who was climbing to his feet.

“I can see pretty well through this eye,” Stanley said, gesturing to his right eye though his left was screwed shut. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the others down in the hole before the bomb goes off.”

“Fall in, cadet. You need to stay with us,” Atkins said with a bit more of his usual bark.

“I can’t,” Keith said, backing away, “they’re going to blow the sim rigs and they have Shiro in there.”

There was an immediate outcry and an argument started about their next course of action. Everyone agreed that Shiro needed to be saved; nobody agreed that Keith was the one who should do it. But what were they going to do, fumble around blindly and hope to take out the bad guys? Keith made sure they were all mobile before cutting out.

Conner had wanted him to go find the adults; he had and they weren’t able to help. Now it was time to rescue Shiro.


	3. Chapter 3

Outside, the mood had changed. Instead of heavy silence broken only by rain, there were frequent bursts of gunfire and loud, carefree shouts carrying across the grounds. The infiltration team was feeling pretty good about things now that the countdown was ticking away. Keith hoped he could change that.

 But at least they weren’t watching as carefully now. Keith edged his way from building to building, using the shadows, making his way back past the cadet dormitory. He’d always been good at sneaking and silence. It had saved him more than once.

The cadet dormitory building ahead was quiet and still. Keith saw Conner standing at their window--a pale, worried blur. Keith stifled his abrupt desire to wave and continued past on the back side of the building.

Out in front, the infiltrators had gathered in the center quad, hoods up, guns at rest. Their voices carried well despite the growing sound of the storm.

“You should have seen the guy blubbering on the floor. He was ready to lick my boots if I’d wanted them cleaned,” one of the louder voices claimed.

“Sure we don’t have time for some more fun? There’s a few cadets here I wouldn’t mind getting to know better.”

“Gross,” another shot back.

“No, I already said there’s no time for that crap. Less than fifteen minutes.”

“So we just stand here and wait?”

“Yeah, we do our  _jobs_  and make sure this doesn’t get screwed up somehow,” snapped Rafe. “That’s the only way anyone’s getting their money.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.”

Keith shook his head. They were mercenaries.  _Makes sense_. He gladly left the dorm behind and eased behind the large block building that housed the Garrison’s vehicles and mechanic shop. He and Shiro might have to head back this way if they had to escape. He wouldn’t mind getting his hands on one of their hoverbikes. He could beat anyone on those things. Even Shiro had been impressed when he’d seen him drive one.

Voices drifted around the corner. “Anybody seen Dillon and Hardbody?”

“Nah.”

“I sent them to take some kid back to the dorm. Haven’t seen them since.”

“Guess they’re getting to know that cadet a little better.”

Keith smiled grimly. No, they had gotten to know the dusty floor of the Utility Room a little better.  _Oh shit._  He suddenly realized that he’d left his cudgel in Command Central when he’d helped get everyone out of that office. Keith punched the dirt and regretted it when his hand reminded him that it was already injured.  _Ouch_. 

It took nearly a minute for Keith to calm down and buckle down the focus he needed to continue, using all the tricks his social worker and Shiro had drilled into him.

Ahead, nearly one hundred yards away, was the Atwood building, home to three stories of classrooms and the enormous basement floor which was dedicated to the sim rigs. Shiro was somewhere in there.

The lights hadn’t been blown around that building. In fact, in comparison with the other parts of the campus, the Atwood Building glowed like a full moon in the night sky. Plus, there were still two armed guards at the entrance. They did not want anyone to mess this up.  _Too bad_. Keith was going to mess it up and he was going to do it in the next fourteen minutes. But how?

_Easy. First, put out the lights. Second, distract the guards._

The Garrison campus sprawled out around him, sloppy with rainwater and peppered with mercenaries with machine guns. What could Keith possibly use...

 _Ah_. There was a patio on top of the nearby Capstone Building with a perfect view of Atwood  _and_  the large seven-bulb ring of light that lit up its yard. Keith scanned the nondescript building quickly. The windows in the Capstone Building were all dark. Hopefully, the invaders had left it alone.

Keith took another look at the group gathered in front of the dormitory. They were far away now and seemed preoccupied with comparing guns. He sprinted soundlessly across the yard, keeping to the shadows and diving under the hedgerow beside the door. The sound of distant laughter filtered through the breeze. They were having too good a time to keep watch.  _Assholes_.He quickly used his pass and slipped inside.

Capstone was deserted, filled with shadows of odd shapes and an expectant silence. Keith only paused before sprinting for the stairs and the second floor. Once there, a natural cautiousness made him halt again in the doorway, to listen beyond his breathing. But there was only silence and he sped ahead.

Two minutes later, he had a leather slingshot and a plastic bucket of marbles, all courtesy of the Physics department. Dr. Meyers had used these to help demonstrate the laws of chaos a few weeks prior.

Then Keith ascended the ladder to the roof patio, using the ultra, super-secret combination to open the lock there. How did he know the combination? It was supposed to be for seniors only, but Shiro had told it to him, knowing that sometimes Keith needed to be closer to the stars in order to feel safe.

Keith had ended up there quite a few nights, when all the things he _didn’t_  have were crowding close around him, taunting him. He didn’t have parents, didn’t have friends, didn’t have a dollar to his name. All he had were a few good memories, as insubstantial as starlight, and a mysterious knife that either meant everything...or nothing. The rest, he had learned to do without, or to provide for himself.

His first foster home had taught him that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It wasn’t an easy lesson to learn. One day, when Keith was nearly eight, his father didn’t come home from work. Scared and lonely and eventually starving, Keith still waited three days before he began walking into town for help. He’d been picked up by a police officer who cared just enough to take him straight to Child Protective Services. There, a lady in a dark blue jacket told him to sit down and gave him milk and cookies. They were homemade and the best thing he’d ever tasted.

She talked a lot, which had made him uncomfortable. His Dad had never talked that much. Just smiled at him and ruffled his hair and fixed him cereal. Sometimes, ravioli. A few of Keith’s memories involved books that his Dad read to him, but not little kid books. It was stuff he didn’t understand, but he still liked hearing his Dad’s slow, Southern voice.

But then, they told him he was dead, a hit-and-run. Someone had run him over and left him there, dead. There was a funeral, but Keith couldn’t remember it very well. Just the vague feeling of complete and utter misery.

After a long night on a cot at CPS and another full day in that office, Keith was taken to a large white house with a long porch across the front. He had always thought those houses had large families in them, but it turned out that this family had no kids of their own. They were borrowing three others, plus Keith. So he had a New Mother and a New Father, which made his stomach ache and his mind churn with questions.

Keith didn’t like asking questions. He clutched the teddy bear he’d been given at that office and followed his New Mother up the stairs to a room where two other beds were fitted against the walls.

The other beds held two other kids, both older than him. They were already sleeping so Keith laid down on his new bed and tried to be quiet. He was good at it. He became even better.

The two kids in the room with him were brothers, and as much as they fought, they loved each other and each other only. Keith was an instant outsider, and the other borrowed kid, an older girl, didn’t like him, either. During the week, Keith’s new parents made them food, or at least his New Mother did. But she went to work on the weekends and when she left, so did the food.

His New Dad was a lot like his old Dad, only this one didn’t like having kids around at all.

It was obvious anytime they were loud that it bothered him, but usually it was still okay. Until one weekend when the boys were playing pirates and making Keith walk the plank, only they pushed him and he ended up falling  _off_  the plank (which was a board across the couch) and he knocked into a lamp. It broke.

New Dad chased them outside and yelled, hitting them wherever he could land a hit. They all eventually ended up in the woods, standing and staring back at the red-faced man now yelling from the porch.

“You can just stay outside if you’re going to act like animals!”

The man went back inside and the sound of the deadbolt sliding home echoed through the clearing. Keith looked around. He liked the woods, but he was upset and hurting. How long were they supposed to stay outside?

Annie, the girl, sat down on a log and started to cry.

“Oh, shut up!” Danny, one boy yelled.

“This is your fault,” Annie sobbed.

“No, it’s not! It’s his!” Danny pointed at Keith.

“I d-didn’t do anything,” Keith stammered, his stomach in knots.

“You broke the lamp, you little shit!” Tommy was nearly purple with anger.

“You m-made me knock it over!” Keith insisted.

“Shut up! Shut  _up!”_

By the time Keith started to run, it was too late. Both boys fell on him, hitting him with their fists and kicking him a few times until they ran out of spite. Keith was little more than a bruised, bloody mess when they were done. He was hurt too badly to figure out what exactly was wrong but his instincts were screaming at him to run before they came back.

Moving hurt worse and a kind of haze had settled over his mind. He found a soft nest of grass under a tree with low branches and crawled in there. Eventually, he passed out.

Sometime later, Annie woke him and fed him a few berries. He was cold from dew and shivering. She put her sweater over him. “The boys ran off to their tree fort. Guess we’ll stay on this side of the woods.” He had no idea why she was being kind to him when she never had before.

“Can we go inside now,” he mumbled as the sun sank beneath the trees.

“No. Mr. Macon keeps saying they feed us enough during the week and we should feed ourselves for a few days. Here, eat some more,” she said, handing him another handful.

Somehow he made it through that miserable night and the next day. When his New Mom finally came home, he kept his head down. She was probably too tired to notice his bruises and how hungrily they all ate the pizza at dinner time.

She did make them all take showers and said they smelled bad. “But I am glad you all decided to play outside today.”

One of the boys shoved Keith, but no one said anything. None of them wanted to lose this home, such as it was.

That first weekend was the worst, and it was at least a month before Keith saw those locked-outside-weekends as anything other than grueling. He did learn which berries to eat and how to make a windbreak, as well as how to hide in plain sight. Staying away from the brothers was just good, common sense. If they couldn’t find him, they couldn’t hurt him.

And then one day, he found out what he could do with a “borrowed” slingshot.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Once on the rooftop patio, Keith had a great view of the circular lights that lit up the entryway of Atwood. It was far too bright to infiltrate with the guards right there. They were facing each other, sitting on the low planters that edged the walkway.

Keith put a marble in the sling and aimed for the the lightbulb farthest away. With a measured whirl of his arm, he let go and the marble took out two bulbs at once. Quickly, he ducked down and hid behind the low wall that encircled the roof. The guards had been startled and it sounded like they were on their feet now.

Keith risked rising just over the lip of the wall to peek over. Just to confuse them, he sent a marble careening into the tree down beside them. _Thunk!_

They whirled around, guns drawn and cocked, sights set. But there was nobody there.

 _Crack!_ Keith took out another light bulb and ducked down. Four more to go.

“Where’s it coming from?”

“Can’t tell. From the dorms?”

“I don’t think they could reach it...”

_Crack! POP!_

“There he is! The rooftop there!”

Keith was already down and crawling ten feet away as the bullets pinged off the wall.

One of them was narrating as they moved toward the building, probably talking into a headset. “We’ve got a kid up on the Capstone building, shooting from a...I think it’s a slingshot....No, I  _know_  he’s no danger to us! But you don’t want some kid loose, right?” They must have answered no, because the man spoke to his partner. “They’re sending someone over.”

Time to leave. Keith popped up and took out the last two lights with one more marble.  _Crack! POP!_

More bullets hit the wall, but it was blessedly dark now. Keith kept low and ran for the rooftop door. It took only half a minute to get to the bottom floor where he headed for the back door. Just before he reached it, someone unlocked it from the outside.

His feet slid on the tile floor and he turned and started running back in the other direction.

“There he is!” a voice cried and then there were footsteps pounding after him.

As he ran, Keith took a moment to ask himself why he had assumed the two coming after him would head through the front door, but...

“I’ve got him,” said another voice ahead, and Keith slid to a stop staring at the man’s grin. They had split up and one come in each door. _Shit!_

The man reached for him but Keith whipped back up the stairs. His only option, really.

“I thought you had him!” one called to the other as they met in the middle and crashed up the stairs after Keith.

Only seconds ahead, Keith felt his heart banging in his chest. He was seriously close to getting caught again, and he was pretty sure that second guy was the one who wanted some up close, personal time with a cadet. _Shit--shit-- **shit!**_

The classrooms flashed by on either side as Keith waited for his brain to come up with an escape plan. He was nearly to the end of the hallway when he finally listened to his instincts and headed to the right corner room on the second floor.

There were large windows in the building, similar to cadet dorm, minus the bars. Keith sprinted down the aisle and jumped up on the counter. There was a desperate fumble with the lock until he realized these windows open by sliding down and not up. But in seconds, Keith wrenched it open, gripped the window frame and holding on, threw himself over to land on the ledge outside.

Inside the room, the two men were barreling straight for him. Keith moved smoothly across the ledge to its end. Heights had never bothered him, and it was easy to reach out and fit his fingers into the grooves between the bricks. The footwork was harder, but he managed to find just enough of an edge to hold his left foot. Then he stepped off the ledge.

Climbing had always come easy to him. It took intense focus to make every move a safe one when you’re hanging off a building or on a rock face, but he loved it. No matter what problem he was trying to forget, free climbing helped him clear his mind as well as test his strength. Here at the Garrison, he had often employed those skills in nighttime activities, scaling buildings when necessary.

Keith reached one foot down and jammed his toes in between two layers of bricks, then slowly moved his other foot to join it. His fingers gripped tight to the bricks above him, the right one aching with a ferocity that set his teeth on edge. Above him and to the right, one of the men was climbing out onto the ledge.

“Damn kid. You want another hole in your head? I can arrange it.”

The man tried to find purchase for his large feet, but they kept sliding off the bricks. Keith smirked, just a little, as the guy flailed and almost fell. Then it was back to work: reaching, shifting and climbing down a little at a time.

The first guy gave up and went to climb back in the window. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to want to shoot Keith off the wall. The other guy was leaning out the window, watching Keith. “Yeah, he’s climbing down like Spidey, no joke,” he said to someone over the radio. “Oh yeah? Well,  _you_  try catching him! Whatever. We’re almost out of time. ”

By this point, Keith had made enough progress to forego the rest of the climb. He pushed off the wall and jumped the remaining distance, rolling at the bottom to save his ankles. It still stung his feet and further aggravated his bad hand. But at least he was free.

A low siren pierced the air. “Time to head out,” someone shouted. Of course--they were leaving before the bombs went off. Keith could count on an extra measure of distraction now.

“But what about the kid?” one of the soldiers above yelled into his radio. “He’s heading for Atwood!”

“Just catch him!”

Keith was already rounding the Southside of Capstone, where he found that something was finally going right. He could barely see in the dim light, but there were no guards left in front of Atwood; apparently they were all chasing him!

Then there were shouts and bullets and he was there, dodging low, slamming into the door and simultaneously swiping his pass to get inside. Instinct had him diving forward, but it was too late. Hot pain tore through the the back muscle of his right thigh and he flopped to the floor on his side in a long slide. Seconds later, the door closed behind him.

Gasping breaths filled the silence as he clutched at his leg. He  _had_  to get up, move further inside to safety...but moving was impossible.

After a few long moments of blood and agony, a muffled voice came through the door. “I guess that’ll be your tomb, kiddo. There’s enough explosives in there to send the third floor down to the basement in about five minutes. But...you probably won’t even feel it. Buh-bye.”

It wasn’t hard to tune the words out when Keith had far more pressing matters to deal with. He’d never been shot before and the pain was vicious. Why hadn’t anyone told him how badly it hurt? You’d think it would have come up, in one foster home or another. He cycled through every curse word he knew before finally being able to force himself to just _move_.

The bullet had punched through the side of his thigh muscle and there was too much blood already. Keith pulled out the slingshot he’d tucked into his waistband and pulled it apart. If he passed out from blood loss...then he and Shiro both were going to die here. So...no. He tied the rubber sling around his thigh, above where the wound bled profusely. It hurt really, really bad to pull it tight, but it felt even worse to get up off the floor.

In the same way, limping down the hallway was painful, but the steps...oh, they were torture. In lockdown, no elevators worked, and by the time Keith reached the basement level, he was panting again, his steps weaving and stuttering. The walls seemed to pulsate around him as each second ticked by.

Keith forced himself to move quicker, in a weird, skipping jog. Another long, impossible hallway stretched ahead of him, darkened classrooms down one side. At the end, a large central room held an elevated platform with simulation rigs in front of a viewing area. Shiro  _had_ to be there. If Keith was wrong about that...then this really would be his tomb.

Flickering lights grew brighter and the sound of an alarm filled the air.

Then came Shiro’s straining voice, _“Come back here, you bastards!”_

Keith gasped as he sprinted the last ten yards and rounded the corner. And there he was.

Shiro was wide-eyed and pale, trying to force himself out of the slump he’d fallen into against the stairs.  _“Keith?”_ Chains were wrapped around his neck, chest and legs, and padlocked to the railing. Even worse, Shiro had been beaten. His mouth was bloody and dark bruises discolored his face and neck.

Keith was seething as he jumped forward to wrestle with the chains. They’d taken Shiro in his  _pajamas_  and manhandled him all the way here!

“No, Keith,” Shiro said hoarsely. “They’ve set explosives to blow this place in three minutes.”

“Did they leave a key?” Keith forced out, attacking the padlock next.

“You have to get out of here, Keith-- _now!”_

“Shiro,  _help me!_ Did they leave a key?”

“No,” Shiro said, his face cycling through frustration, gratitude, fear. “And I’ve tried; the chains are so tight that I can’t get out.”

 _The railing._ Keith hauled on the bent metal poles that lined the stairs, using all his weight and all his strength.

 “They’re cemented into the foundation. They won’t budge. Wait--are you bleeding?” Shiro’s voice went up half an octave. “Keith, did you get _shot?”_

“Doesn’t matter. In three minutes, we’re both dead.” That shut Shiro up. “We need something heavy to break the chains!”

They looked around the room desperately.

Then Shiro gasped. “Wait--the tool kits! Some of them have mallets, heavy ones.”

“Where?”

“In the Utility Room-- _there!”_

 Keith bolted for the door, laser-focused. He opened it, flicked on the light and swiped the mallet off its peg in seconds.

“Pull back! Don’t let me hit you,” Keith yelled as he neared Shiro.

“I don’t care  _what_  you hit as long as you break that chain.”

Keith managed to force a part of the chain against the cement floor. Then he hauled back and slammed the mallet down. The chain held fast.

“This isn’t going to work,” Shiro said in a choked voice. “Keith...”

Keith slammed the mallet down harder, but it did  _nothing!_ Fear began to claw at his insides.

Shiro’s voice grew calm. “I know you tried, buddy, but there’s only a minute and forty seconds left. You have to get out of here.”

Keith shook his head. “No.” He changed his grip on the mallet.

“Please, Keith--”

“No! I’m not  _leaving_ you!” He brought the mallet down again, but the freaking chain was still whole. Keith lifted the mallet and slammed it again, harder and then harder, _again and again!_

**_“Keith!”_ **

Everything around him went silent...and there was suddenly time to think. It was like his whole life had led to this moment, like everything he’d been through had prepared him in some way...

And Keith couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t see through sudden tears in his eyes, but he still knew exactly where that goddamn chain was. With a cry of rage that broke loose something deep down inside of him, Keith brought the mallet down with all the force in his body.

And the chain links... _shattered_...pieces flew off in all directions. There was a dent left in the concrete floor...

“You did it, Keith! I can’t believe it! You’re  _amazing!”_

“But...” Keith was still staring, shocked, as Shiro pulled himself free.

“Now, hold on,” Shiro commanded. There was an all-consuming burst of pain as Shiro swept him up in his arms and ran.

How much time before the bomb blew? Keith wanted to focus on it, wanted to worry, but his body went limp without his permission.  

“Keith, you okay?” Shiro sounded concerned, but didn’t slow down. “You’re heavier than you look, you know that?” His breathing sounded strained as they clanged up the next flight of stairs. “But don’t worry--we’re going to make it, I promise.”

“Watch out for Dickhead on the left,” Keith mumbled into Shiro’s chest, suddenly remembering all the mercenaries outside. What if they were still there?

_“What?”_

“Go right,” Keith clarified, then repeated himself more loudly, _“right.”_

“You’re the boss,” Shiro said lightly, turning right at the top of the stairs. He sounded far too chipper for a near-death situation, but isn’t that just what Keith would expect? Almost nothing could make a dent in Shiro’s eternal optimism. He was still talking, about something positive probably, but all Keith could hear was a comforting rumble from the man’s chest.

Exhaustion tugged Keith’s eyes closed. But the sound of Shiro’s voice kept Keith’s mind off the pain until he couldn’t hear anything anymore.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

As soon as Keith passed out, Shiro shifted him into a fireman’s carry, freeing one arm to throw open the exit door. They were escaping with barely ten seconds left by Shiro’s estimate. So he forced his exhausted body into a sprint.

When they were twenty feet past the door, the first explosion rocked the air.

Shiro hit the dirt, curling over Keith’s limp form as flames lit the night, throwing living shadows around the two of them. Seconds later, a deafening aftershock testified to the collapse of the building’s walls and Shiro pulled Keith back up against his chest to move them farther away.

A ringing in Shiro’s ears muffled all sound. He shook his head, trying to clear it just as another enormous explosion split the air, stopping him in his tracks. Shiro spun, dreading to see the cadet dorm in flames. But it was fine, though there were many panicked faces in the windows. So where had the other blast come from?

Shiro had to carry Keith around the Capstone Building before he could be sure it was... _yes_ ,  Command Central that had been targeted. How many people had been in there? Shiro felt sick looking at the destruction, though more of its walls were left standing than the Atwood building.

Black plumes of smoke poured out of the building and Shiro fought himself over what to do next. Should he help search the wreckage for survivors? But no--Keith was his first priority. That bullet wound needed treatment immediately.

Shiro laid him down in the flood of light from the cadet dorm, shocked again to see all the damage the boy had collected through the night. Bruises and cuts on his face, a bloody bandage wrapped around one hand, a gunshot through one leg and mud and blood smeared, splashed on him from head to toe. And despite all this... _he’d_  rescued _Shiro?_

Gratitude and wonder flooded the man as he reached to check Keith’s pulse. _Dammit_. It was weak. Was he going into shock? Probably. He needed more help than Shiro knew how to give.

Popping sounds that might have been gunfire to his distorted hearing sounded from somewhere on campus, followed closely by what must have been sirens--a lot of them. Surely one of those was an ambulance.

“Be right back,” he told Keith, afraid to move the boy again after jolting him around so badly. Shiro headed for the front of the Garrison. He didn’t walk far before a fire truck sped up onto the grass, headed straight for Command Central, followed by a police car.

But the first ambulance headed straight for Shiro as he waved at it frantically. The paramedic on the passenger side rolled down the window and called out something.

“What’s that,” Shiro yelled back; even his own words sounded muted.

“I said, ‘You got Kogane?’”

Shiro blinked in surprise, “Yeah. He’s back here. He’s been shot.”

“Shit,” the paramedic said, “show us. Where was he shot?”

“The leg, lower thigh,” Shiro answered, probably too loudly, jogging alongside the ambulance. “How did you know about Keith?”

“The 911 call from the bomb shelter. I think it was a Sergeant Atkins? He said that Kogane is the reason all six of them made it to the shelter before the bombs blew.”

“How...” Shiro didn’t know how to process that. “He’s there, on the ground.”

“Got him.”

The ambulance pulled within ten feet of Keith and both men jumped out. Shiro was shocked again to see how pale and still Keith looked. It was just wrong; Shiro stared off into the distance while the paramedics worked on getting Keith stabilized.

Cycling through his mind endlessly was the memory of how this ordeal had begun for him: three men jumping him right as he’d been getting ready for bed, completely catching him off guard. If only he’d been prepared...if only experience hadn’t taught him that someone breaking into his room meant cadets pranking him, not the beginning of a life-and-death struggle.

So, yeah...he got it now. That was why Keith hid a cudgel in his bed; that was why he checked for exits in every room and trusted no one to watch his back. Keith was  _always_  ready for things to fall apart, for the next struggle of life-or-death. It was apparently a lesson that his life had taught him well.

The paramedic cursed and Shiro looked over to see that they had cut open Keith’s pant-leg to get at his wound. Where the skin wasn’t covered in blood was pallid and ghostly white.

One of them caught Shiro’s eyes. “Nice tourniquet.”

“That wasn’t me. I bet he did it.”

The paramedic frowned. “No shit?”

Shiro shook his head and crossed his arms. A police car drove up from Command Central and Shiro welcomed the distraction. Two officers got out.

“Who do we have here? Is this Kogane?”

Shiro forced himself to answer. “Yes, sir. He got shot...at some point. Did you catch the bastards who did this?”

“Yeah, we got a vanload of ‘em trying to sneak out,” said the first officer, an older, heavy-set man. “Seems they didn’t want to stick around and watch the fireworks. We took out a couple of them, but most are in custody.”

“You’re the other guy we’re supposed to be looking for,” the second officer looked at Shiro with interest. “Shiro, right? Good. I’m Jack Rollins,” he said, offering his hand for Shiro to shake. “A lot of people are going to be glad to see you.” A relieved smile lit up the young officer’s face.

“We heard these guys were trying to blow you up with the building,” the other officer said brusquely. “I’m sorry you were involved in this, son.”

“Yes, sir. It would have been a lot worse if Keith hadn’t gotten me out.”

The man’s eyes opened wide. “Kogane saved you, too? Hell of a kid. How’s it looking?” the officer walked closer to the paramedics. “He gonna’ be alright?”

The paramedic beside Keith’s injured leg sat back on his heels and wiped away sweat. “Vital signs are stable, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Once we get some of that replaced I’d say he’s got a fighting chance.”

Shiro suddenly felt weak in the knees and had to sit down. Someone helped him, but their words couldn’t penetrate the sudden fog in his brain.

“Hey, check...is....shock...”

A blanket appeared around his shoulders. Shiro was leaning back against someone, his mind on a hamster wheel of the reported events of the evening. “I don’t understand,” he tried to say, but only muttered unintelligibly. How had Keith freed the officers at Command Central? How had he found Shiro? How in the hell had he broken that chain? Had he had any help at all or was he just running around on his own, dodging knives and bullets and saving lives?

At some point, Shiro’s mind cleared enough to realize he was being helped into the same ambulance as Keith. He spent the entire drive holding Keith’s hand, keeping an eye on the monitors measuring the strength of the life left inside his friend. It was more than a little disturbing. How could someone so fierce and strong appear fragile and helpless?

 

* * *

 

 

Keith was at an amusement park, crowded with people and sights and smells. An enormous roller coaster thundered by overhead, leaving the screams of those riding it behind. He thought he’d like to ride it and then suddenly, he was, riding along with a hundred other cadets, which made no sense but seemed to be somehow perfectly acceptable.

That triggered the first thought that this might be a dream. When he saw that the track ahead ended abruptly at the top of the biggest hill, that’s when he realized this was actually a nightmare.

As the cars slowed at the top before the plunge, cadets were leaping off one by one. Keith was the only one alarmed by this, and he tried to stop them, but he was too far back and too quiet to be heard. Horrified, Keith looked down and saw that there were men with M-16s on the ground who tried to pick off each cadet as they dropped.

Then suddenly, Shiro was there on the roller coaster, only five cars from the end. Keith grew frantic. He had to stop him. He had to--

A loud groan rumbled in his ears, breaking the dream and forcing it away like vanishing mist. There was no roller coaster, no amusement park. Suddenly, it was black and overwhelming pain was roaring at him from too many places.

“Keith?”

There were other voices and a beeping sound, but the pain had his complete attention. No matter how he shifted, it only got worse. He groaned again.

The beeping grew faster. Someone was leaning over him and a large hand took his own. Keith clutched at it, conscious of his gasping breaths.

“She’s giving you some pain meds, buddy. Try and relax. It will get better.” It was Shiro. Keith’s eyes slitted as he tried to see him, but all he could make out was a pale peach blur with black hair. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”

And with those words, Keith felt the medicine kicking in, dropping him back into warm, comforting darkness.

He slept long and dreamlessly this time. When he woke, it was with a gentle sigh. The pain was there, but distant now, the worst in his thigh and his hand.  _Wait_...

Keith’s eyes flickered open to blurry white everywhere. He was trying to remember... something bad had happened. Men in black with M-16s...had been at the Garrison? Yes, one of them hit him across the face. Or stabbed him. Or shot him? Wait...had all of that been a dream, too?

“Sh--shiro?”

“Keith?” A blurry shape came nearer and Keith blinked as he tried to focus. The dark and light blobs resolved into a face, a worried Shiro that was smiling nonetheless. “Hey, buddy, you still with us?”

Keith frowned. His first attempt at answering made him cough, and Shiro got him some water. After a small sip, or rather, a few of them, he laid back and looked over Shiro’s face critically. What he saw made him frown again. Shiro was bruised and exhausted. “‘R you okay?”

“Me? Yes.I’m fine. I’m fine because you saved my life. You’re the one who got beaten, shot and chased all over campus.”

Keith blinked slowly, taking in the tension in Shiro’s voice, trying to fit all that information in his fluff-filled mind. “So I didn’t get stabbed.” He tried to pull his right hand out from under the covers, but he couldn’t find it. His left hand just kept fumbling with the blanket.

“Right. I forgot that one,” Shiro said tightly as he helped Keith disentangle his hand. “Yes, you also got stabbed...in your hand.”

It didn’t look bad; no blood on the bandages, even though there had been a lot of blood when it happened. “That was before I got shot.”

“I think so, from the accounts we heard.”

“It hurts.”

“I’m sure it does. Do you need more pain meds?”

“No. Doesn’t hurt now. I mean, it does,” Keith admitted, blowing out an annoyed breath because talking was hard, “but what I  _meant_  was it hurt to get shot. Really, really hurt.”

“Yeah, I figured it did,” Shiro said ruefully. “So...how much do you remember?”

“Not much. Feeling kinda...floaty.”

“I think we should be glad for the floaty feelings right now. If you didn’t feel that way, then you’d be in some serious pain.”

“Serious pain...that’s not even funny.”

Shiro’s eyebrows rose as he started to smile. “Are you making jokes?”

“Um...maybe? Feeling kinda floaty and funny...and damn. Is there any chocolate milk because I need some.” He searched Shiro’s face intently. “Do you have any?”

“I didn’t even know you liked chocolate milk.”

“Yeah. I do....because ‘m afraid of cows.”

“You are?” Shiro was snickering but Keith didn’t care. He felt the strangest urge to talk.

“Met one when i was...five? Mean as hell. I mean  _the cow_  was mean, not me. Kicked me into a barn door.  _Mooed_  at me? And Dad wasn’t there because it was a school farm...trip.” He paused, glancing uncertainly to the side. “Farm trip? Is that right?”

“Do you mean  _field_  trip?”

“ _Field_  trip, yes. Was a good field, too...very green. Way better than the damn cow. Guess it was a school farm  _and_  field trip.”

"It’s nice to see you smiling, even if it is a bit vacant.”

Keith frowned. “It’s vacant?”  He blearily ran his tongue over his teeth, or at least he tried to, but his tongue really wouldn’t cooperate.

“What are you doing?” The amusement in Shiro’s voice was starting to annoy Keith, just a little.

“I know what ‘vacant’ means, but I didn’t lose any tooths. Teeths. _Teeth,”_ he finally got out and huffed in aggravation.

“Of course not, your teeth are fine. Oh, hey--Conner left these for you.” Shiro pointed to a large vase on the windowsill filled with daisies.

Keith sat, blinking at them, wishing his brain would come to his rescue. Conner. Yes, Conner was his roommate. Conner brought him flowers. Conner plus flowers equals..... _what_?

“His parents came to take him home. He convinced them to bring him by the hospital before they left. He said he hopes you get better soon.”

“He’s gone home? How long did I sleep? Wait...is it  _summer?”_

“No, it’s not summer. You were only asleep for two days,” Shiro said, taking his uninjured hand as if he could see how it was suddenly shaking. Maybe he could. “Hey, it’s okay, buddy. Relax. Your body is healing. Sleep is good for you. I know the meds have your mind scrambled a bit. But I’m here. I’m watching over you, so you can relax. Right?”

Keith swallowed the lump in his throat. “You’re not leaving?”

“Nope. I’ve basically moved in. That other bed over there is mine when I want it. So far, you’ve mostly been sleeping, but even then, I’m still watching over you. And remember, it’s not creepy...”

“...because it’s you,” Keith finished for him. That was a mantra they had developed to help calm Keith’s highly-developed self-defense mechanisms. It reminded Keith that he didn’t have to re-test Shiro’s trustworthiness over and over again. It had already been proven.

With a warm smile, Shiro pulled up a chair and sat down, still holding Keith’s hand. “I’m also guarding you from the reporters. "

“Reporters?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Keith’s forehead wrinkled half-heartedly. “Look at you: you’re too tired to frown right. Go back to sleep, cadet.”

“Yes, sir. Um...but...you don’t mind?”

“Mind what?”

“Staying here?”

“Of course not,” Shiro said. “I’m writing down all the funny stuff you say while you’re on pain meds. I’m going to have tons of blackmail material on you after this.”

“Ugh,” Keith turned away from Shiro and tried to pull his hand away, but the man wouldn’t let go.

“I’m teasing. I’m still here because I was just as worried about you as you were about me that night. I’m actually still a little worried.”

Keith peeked back around to see if Shiro looked as somber as he sounded; he did. “I’m just going to sleep,” he said softly, huffing out a breath.

“I know. But before you sleep, I need to say something and you need to listen. Okay?”

Keith nodded slowly.

“Two nights ago, you were so intent on rescuing me that you didn’t take care of yourself. You were so busy trying to save my life that you almost lost yours. That is unacceptable.”

“What?” Keith turned to fully face Shiro. “That’s not-- how-- what do you mean  _unacceptable?”_

“Keith--”

“I saw them drag you off to Atwood to do who-knows-what to you. Then I heard they were going to blow it up and...and you were going to die. I couldn’t let that happen! I don’t care  _what_  you say--I _couldn’t!”_ Despite his best efforts, Keith’s eyes filled with tears and he turned away again.

“Oh, Keith. I’m sorry,” Shiro put a gentle hand on his shoulder, his voice chagrined. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you don’t understand this, but I feel exactly the same way about you. The thought of something happening to you...all the danger you were in that night trying to help me...it’s not something I can handle very well.” He sighed deeply. “I feel like I let you down.”

Keith tried to turn back and talk, but his face was hot and tears clogged his throat and he still didn’t think Shiro understood. “You didn’t! You’ve never let me down, not once. You’re the only one who  _hasn’t_. _The only one!”_

And it was horrible because he was sobbing so out of control that he had to bury his face in the pillow again. He  _hated_  crying and he hated crying in front of someone else even worse, even if it was Shiro. But then Shiro was patting his back and saying kind things, such reassuring things that Keith found himself turning and sitting up so that he could latch onto Shiro.

Shiro carefully put his arms around Keith. It was a bit startling at first, but then it was just Shiro and he smelled familiar. Keith let himself go; he stopped fighting and let himself really cry.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the tears were done and only a few hiccuping breaths remained.

“Feeling better?” Shiro asked quietly.

“Yeah. Just not my head,” Keith said just as quietly, his cheek against the soft material of Shiro’s sweater. He sniffed. “Shiro?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think they do have chocolate milk?”

“You really like chocolate milk, don’t you?”

 _“Ow_...my hand hurts.”

“Well, buddy, that’s because you’re clutching my sweater like a koala. Here, let go and I’ll find a nurse to get us some chocolate milk.”

Keith listed to the side and allowed Shiro to extricate his bandaged hand from the sweater. Exhaustion was pulling his eyes closed even as Shiro tucked him under the blanket. “White milk,” Keith said through a yawn.

“What about white milk?”

“...white milk is gross.”

After another chuckle from Shiro, his footsteps crossed the room and headed to the hallway. The soothing sounds of his voice floated back to Keith from the nurse’s station, followed by a quiet laugh. The nurses probably loved him; everyone liked Shiro. Some time later, Keith heard the door close and Shiro moved back to his seat by the bed.

It really made no sense at all. Shiro was so busy and important, surely he couldn’t waste this much time just sitting and doing nothing. But it was kind of him and Keith couldn’t help but feel...cared for. A few final tears slid from the corners of Keith’s eyes and joined the others on the damp pillow. Shiro didn’t seem to notice.

The room grew quiet and still. Keith’s mind drifted again, unable to focus on anything for long. Beside him, Shiro shifted in his seat. A book was opened and few pages were flipped, the dusty sound of a finger sliding down a page the very essence of comforting.

While Keith was sleeping, someone would be watching over him and protecting him. Wasn’t that all he had ever wanted? The quiet noises grounded him and eventually, followed him into his dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You might want to scroll over slightly as you view each of the art pieces. They are drawn out widescreen and are a bit bigger than the text. Especially do that on the one in the second chapter if you didn't already do so!


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